Justice department funds research into gender dysphoria and violent crime in latest anti-trans effort

Experts say ‘very dangerous’ move diverts attention from violence driven by far-right extremist ideologies

The US Department of Justice is funding research aimed at exploring whether there is a link between gender dysphoria and violent crime.

Last month, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research arm of the justice department, said it would grant up to $1m for studies into the frequency and type of violence committed by people who have been diagnosed and treated for gender dysphoria.

The notice comes as the Trump administration has aggressively sought to curtail the rights of transgender people in the US, limiting their access to healthcare and identification documents with their correct gender identity on them. It also comes more than a year after the administration has cut funding to research into hate-fueled and extremist violence.

The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to falsely portray transgender people as more likely to commit extremist violence, said Wendy Via, the co-founder and CEO of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE). By doing this, the administration diverts attention from violence driven by far-right extremist ideologies such as the “great replacement” theory, which several high-profile shooters have cited in their manifestos, she added.

“What the administration is doing is very dangerous,” Via said.

Experts and LGBTQ+ advocates call these attempts to link trans people and violence “pseudoscience”, because they depart from a growing body of academic literature showing that it is impossible to link a single characteristic, such as race, political affiliation or gender, as the prime reason for violence. Instead, researchers say the most common thread between most high-profile attackers is not their identity, but their views, which often include racism, homophobia, misogyny and nihilism.

That has not stopped public speculation around the role gender identity plays in violence.

After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in September 2025, rightwing influencers argued that the suspected shooter was motivated in part by what they call “transgender ideology”, a term often used by those on the right to falsely suggest that being trans is a political ideology, not an identity.

The idea that being trans or that being an ally to trans people represents a dangerous political ideology was included in a White House counter-terrorism report this year. Part of its counter-terrorism approach is to address leftwing violence and “transgender ideologies”.

The vast majority of mass shootings in the US have been carried out by cisgender people, although transgender and non-binary people have committed some mass shootings, including ones at Annunciation Catholic school in Minneapolis, Club Q in Colorado Springs, and Tumbler Ridge elementary school in British Columbia in Canada. In these cases, transgender shooters shared characteristics of modern high-profile mass shooters, such as idolizing other killers and online radicalization.